-ose

The biological suffix -ose is used to form the names of sugars. You know the big players: fructose, glucose, sucrose, etc. When you see it on the label on a food package you know what you’re in for--sweet stuff.

What you may not know about the ubiquitous -ose, however, is that it is a two-timing weasel of a thing hellbent on making my jeans too tight.

Yes, like many people, I have a relationship with sugar which at times can be positively unhealthy. I crave sweet stuff. I overindulge. I frequently say “Damn the consequences!” only to be reminded that the consequences are really quite damnable.

I have been known to eat cake icing straight from the tub.*

I know it’s not good. Well, it tastes good, but it’s not so good in the long run for, I don’t know, pick a clinical study.

“Just try to avoid it.”

“Find alternatives.”

“Quit cold-turkey. It worked for Oprah! ...That one time…”

Avoidance, you say? Well yes, that’s an option. Avoiding overly-processed foods with myriad added sugars is definitely a good way to cut down on one’s sugar intake. This is my preferred method, and for the most part it is reasonably successful. You are still able to indulge in naturally occurring sugars like those in fruit, which helps curb the cravings. The thing is, when you start reading the labels, you begin to realize just how much sugar gets put into everyday staples you might not have thought about, like bread. If you’re eating a good whole-grain-type of bread regularly you’re likely to cancel some of that sugar out with the fiber in the bread...but that’s only if you’re not me and you don’t get depressed and eat a stack of toast as tall as your head.

Alternatives can be a slippery slope. You can trade out your processed white sugar for coconut sugar or beet sugar or other natural sugars, but you’re not actually getting rid of the problem. You’re just sticking a ‘natural’ label on it. It’s misleading. Sugar substitutes can help, yes, but personally I don’t find them to be much good for anything other than putting in my coffee. I know they say you can bake with Splenda, but I find it to be sweeter than actual sugar, so between the two I’ll pick plain old white sugar for my chocolate chip cookies any day.

I don’t know how ‘cold turkey’ came to mean what it does in regard to nixing habits. Did the Pilgrims look at each other on the fifth morning after the first Thanksgiving and just go, “Fuck this shit, we’re not eating any more of that damn bird”?

Many of us take comfort in food. We eat our feelings. Society revolves around food--we eat at every major milestone party in life. We eat at every non-major milestone party in life. Food brings people together. Have you ever seen a movie where a character dies and someone doesn’t bring a casserole to their grieving widow/er?

Seriously. It’s always casserole. Why is it always casserole?!

Anyway, the point I’m trying to make is that food is more than a means to stay alive. When we were killing mastodons with our bare hands, no one was thinking about cake. Now that there are no mastodons to kill and Joe from down the street drives for DoorDash, we can have cake at 2am if we want it. Food is plentiful, quick, convenient, and full of stuff that isn’t great for us, but we blame the traffic or the kids’ soccer schedule or just being tired and we eat what we can get our hands on. It’s not terrible, but it’s not great, either. Well, it’s pretty terrible if all you eat is processed crap. Try a salad. I promise it won’t kill you.

As for me, food is definitely a way to express my feelings.

“I love you, therefore I am feeding you.”

“I feel like shit, so I am going to sit here and cry and eat ice cream out of the carton.”

“It’s your birthday! Let’s get drunk and have cake!”

Hoo, there’s another one--the amount of sugar in alcohol. Well, we’ll leave that for another day.

Moral: I need to be better about my sugar consumption, and am therefore outing myself as a sugar addict. I’m going to be better!

::walks to fridge::

::grabs Rainbow Chip icing she had delivered via friend last Friday night when she was drunk, and a spoon::

What? I’m not going to let it go to waste.



*Yes, yes, I know, I know. But my Friday nights my entire first year of college consisted of the six-hour BBC Pride and Prejudice miniseries, a tub of Pillsbury vanilla, and a spoon. I was super exciting.